Quote:
Originally Posted by aberdeen5698
In fact the Granville Street bridge was originally designed to integrate with the proposed downtown freeway network which never materialized.
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Sorry. I don't buy that. The previous Granville Street Bridge was a narrow 4-lane structure akin to the old Cambie Street Bridge. The new design expanded to 6 lanes plus 2 add-on/drop off lanes for the Howe/Seymour couplet as well as the Hemlock and Fir/West 4th couplet. That's proper engineering and design IMHO.
The Granville St. Bridge was opened in February 4, 1954 and if you trace back the construction phase as well as design and financial approval, you might be looking back as early as 1950. In 1950, the term "freeway" was likely not in the public lexicon. And highly doubtful that Vancouver had any "freeway" plans back then. The U.S. interstate system wasn't commenced until 1956.
And makr3trkr is absolutely correct. In urban/suburban areas a 4-lane crossing is a non-starter. The Alex Fraser Bridge should have been designed for 8 lanes - 3 through lanes (for a future 6-lane Hwy 91) as well as an additional add-on/drop-off lane in each direction. Same with the Knight Street Bridge, etc.
Huge volumes add-on and drop-off at each end of any metro bridge crossing bridgehead impacting through traffic. That's the point and problems that we have and face today. Ignore that matter looking 30-40 years out and additional more expensive crossings/capacity will be required.
At least the 2nd Narrows Bridge had a 6-lane cross-section when it was designed and built in the mid to late '50's in essentially a rural area back then (albeit not to current modern design standards in terms of its cross-section). Otherwise we would have been looking at a twinning a long time ago.
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